[Visor]

Is the Forum dying? I don't know.

What I do know is that the AHA membership numbers are flat, after many years of double-digit growth. Craft Brewer are also seeing slower growth.

Homebrewing sees growth in tough economic times, this recovery has been long. Now there are breweries in every small town it seems, will people want to Homebrew in the next recession, when craft beer is just around the corner?

   WHAT? There's gonna be 'nuther recession? Holy crap, we're still in the middle of the last one 'round here!
   There will always be at least a few people home brewing regardless of the economy or other forces, how many is something we'll just have wait and see. On the surface it appears to me at least that most of the under 50 crowd are so hopelessly addicted to their thumb dancing pursuits, but a closer look reveals that there are still plenty of younger people that are just as avidly engaged in creative activities whether they be brewing, quilting, woodworking, gardening or knuckle busting. The digital world can be very alluring, but the part of the populace that is driven to make stuff is always going to find more quality of life in drinking the beer they brewed while eating the garden salad they grew than in responding to some nitwit's latest Fakebook post.

[jeffy]

I am planning a pickle flavored beer. Should I age the beer on bread butter or dill pickles?

The base beer will of course be a saison fermented with wild yeast collected from cucumbers grown in my neighbor’s yard.

I strongly encourage you to be sure to use Sorachi Ace hops (which taste strongly of dill).

Good tip. Thanks!

If you really want to try this, you might look into Pickle from Urban Artifact in Cincinnati for ideas on how-to.   It's not aged on anything and contains no actual pickles.  It's a Gose, brewed with a $#!? ton of fresh cucumbers and a wad of fresh dill and I think coriander and other pickly stuff.  I've never tried it, and don't want to, just doesn't sound like my thing.  But everyone else says it smells and tastes exactly like a fresh pickle.  I love pickles, BTW.   Especially fresh, lactic, half-sours.  Which this beer probably resembles.  But I am a curmudgeon, and will continue to snack on pickles alongside my beer-flavored beer.

I saw that on their menu when I was in Cinci in the Spring, but it was not something I wanted to try.

[Robert]

Is the Forum dying? I don't know.

What I do know is that the AHA membership numbers are flat, after many years of double-digit growth. Craft Brewer are also seeing slower growth.

Homebrewing sees growth in tough economic times, this recovery has been long. Now there are breweries in every small town it seems, will people want to Homebrew in the next recession, when craft beer is just around the corner?

   WHAT? There's gonna be 'nuther recession? Holy crap, we're still in the middle of the last one 'round here!
   There will always be at least a few people home brewing regardless of the economy or other forces, how many is something we'll just have wait and see. On the surface it appears to me at least that most of the under 50 crowd are so hopelessly addicted to their thumb dancing pursuits, but a closer look reveals that there are still plenty of younger people that are just as avidly engaged in creative activities whether they be brewing, quilting, woodworking, gardening or knuckle busting. The digital world can be very alluring, but the part of the populace that is driven to make stuff is always going to find more quality of life in drinking the beer they brewed while eating the garden salad they grew than in responding to some nitwit's latest Fakebook post.

Indeed.   When I hear the popular term "Maker," I immediately conjure up an image of somebody much younger than myself.   I think us older folks were much more inured to a fast-food, packaged, throw away, convenience lifestyle that younger people -- SOME of them at least, and increasingly in urban areas and not just the old, rural, purely-out-of-necessity DIY strongholds -- have reacted against.   Nobody I was aware of in my generation was knitting in their 20s, or going to whole hog butchering classes on a date, for crying out loud.  And the people in the older generation who weren't inclined to do hands-on stuff may not have had all the electronic and virtual distractions, but surely had no trouble finding other inane pursuits to numb their brain cells.  But the new hobbyists' approach to homebrewing both in terms of technique, thanks to options that never existed before we grew the hobby up, and what they value in it, inevitably is changing -- but probably broadening, not contracting.  The question of this forum's future is probably not determined by subject matter.  It's just a matter of shifting options and preferences in how people communicate and organize socially.   The online forum didn't exist once.  Magazines and pay phones and those bulletin board 8 1/2 x 11 notices you tore a fringe with a phone number off of did.  I have a hard time envisioning what could possibly supersede this perfectly desirable medium.  But that's my lack of imagination.

[Phil_M]

When I hear the term "Maker", i conjure up an image of someone who tinkers around but never sticks with something long enough to get past the basics and into the science.

Basically, continual apprentices.

[dmtaylor]

When I hear the term "Maker", i conjure up an image of someone who tinkers around but never sticks with something long enough to get past the basics and into the science.

Basically, continual apprentices.

Yup.

I never heard the term Maker until now.  Looked it up.  I understand now.  To me the line looks very blurry between the term Maker and the term Hipster.  Jump on the bandwagon to whatever the current fad is, have fun being a "Maker" of whatever it is for a few months... then move onto the next thing.  Kind of fun... and kind of a waste at the same time, IMO.  I mean, I think of all the people I've known over the years who have brewed one or two or even three batches of beer, and the beers even turned out pretty darn good.... and then they gave up the hobby and never looked back.  Like I gave my own brother some equipment and he brewed two batches, and they were good (with my assistance)...... and that was like 15 years ago and he hasn't brewed one single time again since then.  Same for my bro-in-law.  Fickles.

I'm such an old fuddy duddy.   

[Robert]

When I hear the term "Maker", i conjure up an image of someone who tinkers around but never sticks with something long enough to get past the basics and into the science.

Basically, continual apprentices.

And before they get financing to open a brewery, they damn well ought to have progressed way beyond that (sadly not generally the case.)  But that is sufficient to keep the hobby supplied with a continual influx of new participants, even if, as Dave observes, most of them are transient.   That's always been the case.  From the early days, how many people got a bucket and saved some Grolsch bottles, tried a couple of Coopers or John Bull kits in the dorm, maybe got an apartment and tried something else more ambitious, and then life happened.   I don't see dilettantism presenting the hobby with an existential threat.  (Or commercial beer.  It'll just all be Big Beer again someday.)  A few people will always want to really learn and take it to the highest level, while most never will.

[tommymorris]

I am planning a pickle flavored beer. Should I age the beer on bread butter or dill pickles?

The base beer will of course be a saison fermented with wild yeast collected from cucumbers grown in my neighbor’s yard.

I strongly encourage you to be sure to use Sorachi Ace hops (which taste strongly of dill).

Good tip. Thanks!

But I am a curmudgeon, and will continue to snack on pickles alongside my beer-flavored beer.

The maker in me says, “I’ve dabbled in this pickle beer thing long enough. I’ll just have a pickle with my beer-flavored beer.”

[Robert]

I am planning a pickle flavored beer. Should I age the beer on bread butter or dill pickles?

The base beer will of course be a saison fermented with wild yeast collected from cucumbers grown in my neighbor’s yard.

I strongly encourage you to be sure to use Sorachi Ace hops (which taste strongly of dill).

Good tip. Thanks!

But I am a curmudgeon, and will continue to snack on pickles alongside my beer-flavored beer.

The maker in me says, “I’ve dabbled in this pickle beer thing long enough. I’ll just have a pickle with my beer-flavored beer.”

That's because you, sir, have stuck around long enough to really learn some things!

[Megary]

Every generation has had Makers and Hipsters and every other type of ers. Just called them something different is all. Every new generation pisses off the older ones. That’s their job and that’s the way it should be. Embrace it.

[dmtaylor]

Every generation has had Makers and Hipsters and every other type of ers. Just called them something different is all. Every new generation pisses off the older ones. That’s their job and that’s the way it should be. Embrace it.

True, ain't it!  LOL

[Phil_M]

Every generation has had Makers and Hipsters and every other type of ers. Just called them something different is all. Every new generation pisses off the older ones. That’s their job and that’s the way it should be. Embrace it.

True, but as a millennial myself I think this is different. Yes every generation hates on the next...but honestly this whole maker thing is more based on delusion than a "yall's music today sucks" kinda thing.

This is how I see it:
A maker, with a four year business degree and a good job graduates from Estes rockets to making rockets from scratch thinks he's actually accomplishing something to benefit the space age. Compare and contrast that with the guy who is apprenticed as a tech and at the same age is in community college working on his ASE using an Estes rocket to model trajectory for his Dynamics course...

[AzBruin]

I disagree with your put downs on "makers". I consider myself a "maker" because I prefer to do most things myself. I won't let anyone work on my car, if it needs something, I do it. I make my own furniture. I can my own food. I make my own beer. I facet gemstones and make jewelry. My lifelong day job is repairing aircraft.
I am not a millennial, I'm a bit over 60. You might say I'm a jack of all trades, including carpentry, masonry, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC.
I do all these things because they need doing, and I get satisfaction from doing them myself. And, if something is not up to snuff, I don't have anyone else to blame.

Rant off. Time for another stout.

[Visor]

   The generally negative connotation the term "Maker" has to many people is the very reason I deliberately avoided using it.
    Like a lot of other DIY'ers I've been making stuff and fixin stuff and modifying stuff for as long as I can remember, I laugh when I think of all the times my dad jumped on in the middle s!@#t for not putting his tools back where they belonged. I don't spend much time or mental effort trying to define myself to myself, others are usually eager to do it for me, but I've always understood that my love, in reality need to create/make/modify stuff isn't something that the majority of humanity shares, but there still are a buttload of people more or less like me in this regard. Hence this forum. I'm the knucklebustin' gearheads and the quilters and the gardeners and potters have a numerous forums dedicated to those addictions.
   I think I am fundamentally different from the stereotypical Maker as the term is used today, but if some chose to call me that I'm not gonna get my knickers in a wad. I also don't want to be unfairly critical of dilettantes [as someone referred to them] for bouncing from one interest to another, at least they have a desire to do something creative, and there is no creative outlet that is ideal for everyone. There are a number of hobbies that I once avidly pursued that are no longer things I engage in - I have several dozen Ukrainian Easter eggs from the days when I indulged that interest, the newest one is over 40 years old. I still am known by a good percentage of the town as the crazy guy who had a garden in his front yard, and had a garden every year - even when working out of town - for over 20 years, but I haven't grown one in almost 20. I took a 25 years hiatus from brewing because life happened.
   I am currently more intensely into beer making than I was in the past, but that may change over time, and if it does some other Maker interest will probably be the cause of the diminishment. If I lived a healthy, wealthy & free 1,000 years I wouldn't have enough time to do all the maker stuff I already have on my list!!

[Phil_M]

I disagree with your put downs on "makers". I consider myself a "maker" because I prefer to do most things myself. I won't let anyone work on my car, if it needs something, I do it. I make my own furniture. I can my own food. I make my own beer. I facet gemstones and make jewelry. My lifelong day job is repairing aircraft.
I am not a millennial, I'm a bit over 60. You might say I'm a jack of all trades, including carpentry, masonry, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC.
I do all these things because they need doing, and I get satisfaction from doing them myself. And, if something is not up to snuff, I don't have anyone else to blame.

Rant off. Time for another stout.

See, you're saying maker, but what I'm hearing is Renaissance man. Half the issue with the average person dubbed a "maker" is they do a only somewhat passable job at best, or do a job that only relates to something of little practical value, like movie props or cosplay.

Why I tend to put "makers" forward with a somewhat negative connotation is a direct result of many I've encountered who aren't willing to put in the time to become proficient.

FWIW, I do all my own vehicle maintenance as well, up to and including pulling transmissions and swapping engines. I've got an LS I'm pulling now in fact, recipient vehicle is still TBS. Just finished some work on my Camaro that should have it in the high 11's.

[Robert]

Wow, I opened a can of worms!  Guess I wasn't aware that "maker" had acquired this negative sense.  When I quoted it I was thinking in terms more like the way Visor and AzBruin are using it.  A sense that it had a decade or more ago when it first appeared on my radar.   Like a DIYer, but more of an inventive, resourceful, junkyard engineering, tinkering sort.  Oops, now "tinkering" is probably a semantic landmine.  But I thought this was a sensibility that was coming back around, as things do every couple of generations.  Pendulum swings.